Dylan Marron

Dylan Marron takes complicated social issues and finds accessible ways to talk about them through interviews, short-form videos and satire.

Why you should listen

Dylan Marron is the host and producer of the Webby-winning podcast Conversations with People Who Hate Me, where he calls up folks who wrote him negative or hateful messages on the internet. Previously, Marron created Every Single Word, a video series that edits down popular films to only the words spoken by people of color as a way to tackle Hollywood's representation problem empirically. To address the anti-trans bathroom bills, he created and hosted Sitting in Bathrooms with Trans People to broadcast a missing element: mundane, funny conversations with trans folks in the very spot their presence was debated.

As he tells it: "The 2016 presidential election inspired me to satirize the popular unboxing genre where YouTubers open the latest electronic gadgets by instead unboxing intangible 'products' like Islamophobia, police brutality and masculinity. And because this work gained popularity on the internet, I received many negative messages which inspired me to start Conversations with People Who Hate Me, a podcast where I call up some of the folks who sent me those messages. In the end, I'm trying to turn the internet into a place where we can connect and learn, not divide."

Dylan Marron’s TED talk

More news and ideas from Dylan Marron

The seven speakers lived up to the two words in the title of the session. Their talks showcased both our collective insanity — the algorithmically-assembled extremes of the Internet — and our humanity — the values and desires that extremists astutely tap into — along with some speakers combining the two into a glorious salad. […]